Kimchi

So I made kimchi. It’s loosely based on the method of Sandor Katz in Wild Fermentation:

My only regret is that none of the ingredients were home grown. Kimchi Fail. Nonetheless it’s very tasty and counts as something preserved that doesn’t need fossil fuels to preserve it (aka refrigeration).

I started with half a wombok chinese cabbage, sliced into shreds. Added grated carrot, a sliced red capsicum (for colour), sliced onion, finely chopped garlic and ginger and some red cabbage that had nearly reached its use-by date. Plus half a leek that was keen not to go to the worm farm. You can add chilli, but I’m not a chilli person. I would have added some home-grown sliced kale, but the rabbits….

Put the whole lot into a large bowl and mix (hands are good for this):

Make up a brine with 4 cups of water and 4 tablespoons of salt and pour over the vegetables. Push them down till the brine covers them and weight down with a dinner plate or similar. Leave for a few hours. I started mine late in the afternoon so left it on the bench overnight:

Drain off the liquid, reserving some to top up if required and pack the vegetables into a jar. Weight down again with what ever suits (I use a smaller jar filled with water) and push it down hard till liquid comes to the surface. Make sure all the vegetables are submerged:

Cover with a cloth or plastic bag and leave on the bench for a week or so while the fermentation proceeds. You can see the tiny bubbles of CO2 forming and they will rise to the top as you push down on the weight. Once it’s fully fermented, it’s ready to eat.

You can store it in the fridge if you really want to, or just leave it in a cool place.

The vegies stay crunchy and surprisingly not too salty. You need to drain it before use, of course…just grab a tongsful and put it in a sieve for a minute. I use it on top of dry biscuits for lunch or on crusty bread rolls, or just as a side dish with salads.

I just made some krauts too. Sauerkraut (just cabbage) is nice but a bit boring. I made fermented carrot sticks, fermented carrot and cabbage, fermented slaw (carrot, cabbage and onion) and fermented carrot and ginger. I noticed yesterday 1 has a bit of mould on top but the rest smell heavenly so time to find them a home in the fridge now. 🙂 Mine were all bought ingredients too but getting there slowly. My cabbages are nearly ready to harvest and the carrots are organic farmer direct ones at least. 🙂

I have eaten a bit of kimchi can be quite hot. Also eaten some other Korean food when I stayed in a Korean household when I was studying at The Gold Coast in Queensland and also the first person as a tutor of English teaching children and had first Korean food with the family.

I loved the kimchi that I made using Sandor’s wonderful template but mine was crammed to the back gills with garlic, chilli and ginger and I threw in several types of sea veggies to make up for the lack of small dried fish that the Korean’s love SO much in just about everything. Never known an Asian culture to love meat so much as the Koreans! Yours looks excellent. I am going to have to make some more. I did keep a cup full of the last batch for about 6 months but ended up eating it, it was delicious! Now I have to start all over again… I am going to try to grow enough chillies this year to make my own homemade fermented gochujang…YUM 🙂